


Happy Girl

by mooglecharm (morphaileffect)



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/F, Family Drama, Minor Character Death, PLEASE NOTE THIS ONE TAG ABOVE ALL, Romance, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:20:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29612091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morphaileffect/pseuds/mooglecharm
Summary: Everyone, including her Paw-paw, knew Cindy Aurum as a "happy girl" - one who was always cheerful and upbeat, who always saw the bright side of things.But Cindy had a safe. Inside that safe were three letters, all of which spoke of feelings that no "happy girl" should feel.
Relationships: Cindy Aurum/Aranea Highwind
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	Happy Girl

**Author's Note:**

  * For [covacola](https://archiveofourown.org/users/covacola/gifts).



> Inspired by thoughts spurred by [the extremely imaginative covacola (liibertus on Twitter).](https://twitter.com/moogle_charm/status/1363136614126428165?s=20) Thank you for helping my Cindy/Aranea thoughts take shape ♥
> 
> The first part of this fic was VERY LOOSELY inspired by a few lines from a poem by a Filipino writer that I read and memorized (probably badly) a long time ago. They go thus:
> 
> "A boy who wrote of suicides at six  
> mailed the note at twenty-one, saying  
> 'Mother, Father, I am gay  
> but I'm not sad anymore."
> 
> If anyone knows this poem's title, and where to find the full poem, please let me know!
> 
> ...After sharing that, I feel I should emphasize the _TW for suicidal ideations by a minor._ Tread with caution.

_Dear Paw-paw,_

_I’m sorry._

_I miss my Mom and Dad too much._

This was the letter she wrote when she was seven.

The next time she held it in her hand again, she was seventeen.

Cindy had always been an inquisitive child. To teach her about the value of privacy, Paw-paw had made little Cindy a safety deposit box, which was magically bound to her, so that no one else could open it.

Paw-paw had one, too, a much bigger one - where he stored things he didn’t want Cindy to see.

This letter was one of the first things Cindy had placed in the safety deposit box - along with the flashy hairpin that her mom wore on the day that she died. And a rusty old screwdriver that Paw-paw said had belonged to her dad.

At seventeen, Cindy could still remember vividly how she felt as she was writing this letter. How she cried. The paper still had tear stains on it.

It was a goodbye letter - penned in a shaky hand by a little girl who hated goodbyes, and never learned how to say them properly.

(“Have fun,” “Take care,” “Careful out there” - these were the things she said to other people, as they left Paw-paw’s garage.

Some of them said “Goodbye.” But she never did. Goodbyes, for her, were much too sad.)

So she wrote her grandfather a letter. A simple apology.

And then...what? That, Cindy could no longer recall.

Maybe she was going to drink the cleaning liquids in the high shelves: the ones that Paw-paw said she should never, ever touch. Maybe she was going to activate one of the big metal-cutting tools she should never, ever try to operate, and then stand underneth it. At least _that_ was going to be quick.

Maybe she was going to walk into the desert, as far and as fast as she could, stay there until dark, and just wait to be found by a daemon.

Like the one that got her Mom and Dad, as they were driving down a dark street, a year ago. That way, maybe the three of them could still be together.

She couldn’t remember what she had decided on at age seven. But she remembered being so very sad. Sad in a way that Paw-paw, the most important person in her life, could not have possibly understood.

The day after she wrote that letter, Paw-paw drove to Lestallum with her and got her ice cream. She loved Lestallum and ice cream and her Paw-paw, and she immediately forgot all about the letter she had sealed away.

 _“Y’know what, Cindy,”_ Paw-paw had said, ruffling her hair, _“I’m glad you’re such a happy girl.”_

She remembered the ice cream. It was chocolate soft-serve. It was divine.

She remembered Paw-paw’s sad smile.

But she forgot all about the letter until today, when she was seventeen years old.

And she opened the door to her little safe because she wanted to put another letter there. One she had just finished writing.

_Dear Paw-paw,_

_I’m writing this letter because I don’t know how else to talk to you._

_Whenever I try, you tell me to mind my own business._

She wasn’t sad when she wrote this one - she was angry.

_But you see, Paw-paw, Hammerhead IS my business._

_It’s been my home for the last eleven years._

_So don’t tell me not to worry about it when I hear it’s going to close down._

She contemplated throwing away the older, sadder letter. The anger that came with the _new_ letter filled up her heart now.

But she decided against it. Someday, she may want to have an archive of this:

Things she could never say to her Paw-paw’s face.

_I want to help bring in business. I’ve made friends everywhere, friends who could help. People who’ll be happy to spread the word about Hammerhead and the good work we do here._

_We don’t even have to expand into weapons. I know how much you hate that._

One of the reasons she wrote this letter in the first place was because she had suggested they offer weapons upgrades. It wasn’t even such a new idea: quite a few of the hunters who had passed by Hammerhead had already brought it up (“You got all the equipment here already, Cindy-girl, I’m sure you’ll be able to transition from cars to weapons in a pinch.”) and hinted that she and her grandfather would make a quick buck by offering such services to anyone who requested them.

But Paw-paw interrupted her by raising his voice, yelling about how war never did anyone any good - about how he was a mechanic, not a warmonger, and how he would never play “those blasted killing games” for as long as he could help it.

When Cindy tried to press her point - that there was a _huge_ market for good weapons and getting into it could save the garage from bankruptcy - he yelled at her for being a “know-nothing child” and stormed out of the room.

The thing was - Cindy knew her grandfather could make weapons. She’d seen the blueprints. The ones he kept in his safe.

The thing was...Cindy was also interested in weapons, armor and war machines. Almost as much as she was interested in cars.

And she couldn’t even study up on them. The last time her grandfather caught her with armor schematics in her room, he flew into a rage and burned them all.

The books were from a library in Insomnia, brought to her by a friend who lived there. Paw-paw made Cindy pay for the lost fines out of her allowance.

But she supposed she understood. Paw-paw rarely talked about the war that he had lived through in his youth. He rarely talked about the friends he made from that time - and from the little that Cindy could gather, they’d even had a falling out, maybe even of the irreparable sort.

It was as if her beloved grandfather would rather forget everything painful that he experienced during the war.

So she would force herself to understand. She knew all about battle scars; she couldn’t even say “goodbye.”

Again, that was what this letter was for.

_I just have all these IDEAS, Paw-paw, and you never listen to them._

_If I can’t make you listen, and I’m just gonna have to watch everything you’ve worked so hard for go down the drain, I don’t see the point in staying._

Tears of helplessness and rage filled her eyes. She had already reread the letter dozens of times. But rereading it this one last time before hiding it where her Paw-paw couldn’t possibly find it, until it was ready to be given - she still felt it in her heart.

_I love you, Paw-paw. I owe you everything. I’m going to keep trying to get through to you._

_But if you’re reading this letter, that means I’ve done all I could and I have to go._

_I hope you understand someday. But more than that, I hope we see each other again._

She signed the letter with _“Your loving granddaughter, Cindy”_. She pressed it once, solemnly, to her chest, before placing it in her safe.

Around a week after she sealed the safe again, the windfall they had been hoping for came. The car of a nobleman from Insomnia had broken down near Hammerhead. The car was towed into the garage, and Cindy had a look at it.

Cindy pointed out to the noble that his car, a flashy but generally fragile model, was not suited for use outside the city. She overrode her Paw-paw’s “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality for new clients (he was especially dismissive of nobles and rich people, for some reason) and suggested fixes that would vastly improve the car’s performance.

The noble, who knew nothing about cars, asked what she needed. Cindy made a list. The noble quickly procured them from the Crown City, that blessed cradle of technology, and immediately, Cindy got to work.

She still remembered every last detail of that first car she customized. She would always think of it as one of her best.

The noble was pleased with what she’d done. He paid a great deal more than he was billed, went home and bragged about his “beefed-up new ride” to his astonished peers.

Word of Cindy’s ingenuity spread, and Hammerhead gained a reputation for customizing cars for off-road and off-city travel.

The next few years were the best ever for Hammerhead. People flocked in not just from Insomnia, but other nearby Lucian territories. Mostly, they were rich people who would spare no expense to spruce up their precious vehicles.

Cindy wanted to think they didn’t discriminate, and did their best to treat every client equally...but Paw-paw was too set in his ways.

Paw-paw joked that if a “Nif” ever ventured into their garage looking for service, he was going to chase them out with a double-ended spanner. Fortunately, Niflheim forces couldn’t get as far as Leide, thanks to King Regis keeping a close eye on his lands. This wasn’t a problem they had to worry about just yet.

Cindy stayed in Hammerhead for another ten years. And forgot all about her second letter, too.

***

The next time Cindy opened her safe again, she was twenty-seven.

King Regis Lucis Caelum CXIII, a good friend of Paw-paw from the war, had just died.

His only son, and three of his royal retainers, had asked for Cindy and Paw-paw’s help to armor up the Regalia for the dangers that lay before them. Paw-paw had even made weapons upgrades for them (Cindy could only silently eyeroll at this).

Insomnia had fallen, and Niflheim had free rein over Lucian land.

Hammerhead had begun to lay low. Paw-paw would “rather die than serve a murderer, especially a Nif,” he told Cindy every chance he got. As soon as a Niflheim airship was within sight, he hurriedly instructed her to close up shop.

There wasn’t much business anyway, what with people needing to use their money on more important things than car customization - like finding food, shelter, medicine...other important things needed to stay alive.

But because the Niflheim militia was now everywhere, it was perhaps inevitable that Cindy would come across one of them...say, during a supply run.

_Dear Paw-paw,_

_I don’t know how to tell you this..._

_But I met someone._

There were three of them: two men and a woman. A car they were driving had broken down; they’d pushed it to the side of the road.

It was yet another luxury car fresh out of Insomnia, with none of the trimmings needed for smooth sailing in desert roads.

Cindy raised an eyebrow at the sight of an Insomnian car being driven by Niflheim soldiers...but then, she figured, they appropriated it from the city, then broke it because they didn’t know the first thing about driving flimsy city cars on desert roads.

“Y’all need some help?” she asked as she pulled up next to their vehicle. She wasn’t Paw-paw: she would offer her expertise to anyone who needed it, “Nif” or no.

“Would certainly appreciate it,” the woman said, brushing damp silver bangs back from her forehead. “Looks like this car is much like its drivers: not built for the heat.”

Niflheim soldiers might not be built for the heat, but looking at the woman, Cindy immediately decided they had no problems at all looking hot.

Erm.

_And I don’t think you’ll like them, Paw-paw._

“Mind if I take a look?” she asked. The woman called to her companions, named Biggs and Wedge, to step away from the open hood and let someone who knew what they were doing take over.

In a snap, Cindy knew what was wrong and how to fix it. Luckily, she’d brought a couple of repair kits along...like she always did whenever she drove. One could never be too ready, especially in those uncertain times...

She happily chattered away while she did the repairs. In the meantime, she basked in the admiring stares of her new Niflheim acquaintances.

Especially the woman’s.

Another thing caught Cindy’s eye was an assortment of unfamiliar weapons at the back of the car. She’d seen hunters’ and Lucian soldiers’ gear, and at first glance, she could already tell those weapons were nothing like it.

She especially noticed the long lance. The woman caught her staring as she passed the car.

“This,” she said, “is a personal favorite.” She took up the lance and did a few exhibition moves with it.

Cindy folded her arms over her chest, softly grunted.

It was her turn to be impressed.

_They showed me things I’ve always wanted to see, but haven’t really had the courage to really LOOK at._

_Because you always said it was bad for me._

How comfortable she looked wielding that weapon, Cindy noted - she must be a high official. At least someone in a leadership position, who belonged in the front lines. She seemed decisive, no-nonsense, especially when she addressed her companions (and underlings?) Biggs and Wedge.

And as soon as her hand touched the weapon, its tip glowed faintly - as if something was activated in it.

No doubt about it: that lance was _made_ for her.

Much like the safe that Paw-paw had given Cindy, when she was small. The safe that Cindy had never once thought about taking apart and analyzing.

“Okay if I touch it?” Cindy asked. After a few seconds of firm reluctance, the woman handed over the lance.

The lance lost its glow as soon as it left the woman’s hand, but Cindy found it no less fascinating. It was made of a combination of alloys she found unique, and there were spiderweb-thin, intricate grooves along its exterior, where she presumed the magic would flow.

What she would _give_ to see its internal mechanism!

As she returned the lance to the woman, Biggs started up the car. Everyone’s faces brightened up, and Cindy was finally treated to the woman’s smile.

Her million-gil smile.

“Well, only seems fitting we know each other’s names, since you’ve already fixed my car and touched my lance.” She placed a hand over her chest. “I’m Aranea.”

Cindy mirrored the gesture. Was it a Niflheim custom?

“I’m Cindy,” she replied. “Pleased to meet ya!”

“How much do I owe you for the trouble, Cindy?”

Her name out of the woman’s full lips, in her deep voice - was surprisingly pleasant to hear.

“Just happy to help,” she brightly said. And then she asked. She knew she would have regretted it forever if she hadn’t asked. “Although...you _would_ be doing me a _big_ favor if you’ll let me take a closer look at that lance, sometime. Is that okay?” She cleared her throat, shifted her weight from one hip to the other. “See, I’m a mechanic, and out here in the sticks, my folk don’t often come by things this pretty.”

 _That_ pretty. She’d meant to say ‘ _that_ pretty.’

Because Aranea was holding the lance, now. And Cindy meant the lance, of course.

Aranea smiled again, almost, and tucked a strand of long silver hair behind one ear.

She then told Cindy that she, Biggs and Wedge will be passing by this stretch of road again in a few more days. If there was anywhere nearby they could meet, she would be glad to bring the lance again, for Cindy to examine. And answer any questions about it, if that would help.

Cindy beamed. It would, indeed, help greatly if Aranea were around to answer any questions. And maybe show her again how the lance worked.

Biggs and Wedge looked at each other knowingly. Wedge elbowed Biggs, and Biggs held back a snicker. None of this escaped Cindy.

Cindy told her about a rest stop, just about a mile or so from where they were. Aranea agreed to meet her there in three days’ time.

Cindy’s pulse was racing; she had just noticed.

“Goodbye,” Aranea said first.

“Y’all take care now,” Cindy answered.

Cindy waited for their car to vanish from view, before getting back into her truck and resuming her supply run.

_It’s not that I resent how you raised me, Paw-paw._

_I’m only writing you this letter, because..._

_I’m a little scared._

_I feel like I’m about to start something new._

_And I wish I could talk to you about it._

***

She didn’t finish writing that letter in one go. She hid it in the safe first, then forgot about it for a while -

the “while” that it took for her to get to know the person named Aranea Highwind better.

Three days after their roadside encounter, they met at the rest stop Cindy had told Aranea about.

This time, Aranea went by herself. At least, if she had anyone with her, she had apparently asked them to keep a respectful distance...perhaps so that Cindy would feel like it was just the two of them, alone together, in all the world that night.

“So, if you press this button here,” Cindy asked, fingering a small button near the bottom of the lance, “it would make the lance do - what?”

“Deal extra lightning damage.” Aranea shrugged. “I don’t know how it works, myself. But when I was given the lance, I was told that was what it did.”

Aranea was so clueless about tech. When faced with tech questions, she had a tendency to bite a corner of her lower lip, as she tried to make sense of things.

Cindy melted inside at the sight.

 _They’re probably one of the last people you’d want me hanging out with,_ she would write in her letter, _but I think that if you gave them a chance, you’d like them eventually._

“Know what...” Cindy took out a metal panel from the lance. And then another. Aranea stopped biting her lip; her lovely green eyes went wide as plates. “...I could probably make this dish out even _more_ lightning damage, with the right materials. I don’t expect you’d have them on you right now, but...would you be willing to get ‘em for me?”

Hearing this seemed like such a relief to her. Her face softened, her muscular shoulders relaxed.

“For you,” she said, “anything.”

Cindy might have blushed upon hearing that. She was not certain. She did not care.

All she cared about was the million-gil smile in front of her.

_They make me feel so many new things, Paw-paw._

_I wish I could tell you._

***

A couple of days later, Aranea came back to their rest stop rendezvous with the raw materials Cindy needed to upgrade her lance.

Two days after that, she met Cindy at the same old rest stop, gushing about how magnificent her upgraded lance was.

Cindy only said, again, that she was happy to help...although her inner artisan was turning happy cartwheels in her chest.

They met several more times after that, with Aranea bringing more weapons for Cindy to pick apart. They talked about a lot of other things besides weaponry and tech.

At one point, one evening, Aranea held Cindy’s hands tightly in her own.

At another point that same evening, Cindy wasn’t sure when, she was still holding Cindy’s hands as their lips met.

They did not spend the night together. But they did spend a few glorious hours in each other’s company. Exploring each other. Figuring out a precious bit of what each other liked.

And then she had to go home. To a grandfather who had stayed up, worried sick, demanding to know where she was.

_I’m sorry, Paw-paw. I really wish I could always be the happy girl you want me to be._

_But right now, I just feel...scared._

“Scared” felt like the wrong word. She crossed it out. Tried other words in its place:

_Worried_

_Apprehensive_

_Adrift_

None of those words accuralte described how she felt...

And at the same time, all of them did.

She crossed each of them out again, kept the word _“scared”_ in the end, all the time remembering -

how she talked back to her grandfather - one of the rare times that she did - when he asked her where she had been all that day.

He tried to yell at her, but she only yelled back, in an even louder, more assertive voice, that she was an adult, who could make her own decisions. Who didn’t need his help in figuring out what was for the best.

And he shut up, apparently helpless against her fury.

He stalked off, as he often did when his granddaughter upset him. In turn, she stalked off to her room.

She was twenty-seven years old. No longer a sad child, or an angry teenager.

So she pulled out that letter from her safe, and continued writing another “goodbye” to her grandfather.

She decided that “scared” was as good a word as any to describe what she felt that day.

_I’m scared...because being with them makes me do things I never thought I was capable of doing._

_Things that could hurt you, if you knew._

She crossed that line out. What Paw-paw didn’t know couldn’t possibly hurt him.

_But I will do my best to make sure that those things are as close to good as I can make them, dear Paw-paw._

_You’ve taught me as much as you could about what is “good.”_

_And I intend to honor it, through my fear._

She still signed that third letter with _“Your loving granddaughter, Cindy.”_

Even if she never delivered it.

She put it in her safe, with a lock of Aranea’s long, straight silver hair carefully tucked into its folds. Aranea had given Cindy that lock of hair before an especially perilous mission, from which she was not sure she would come back alive (she did, of course).

Paw-paw would never get to read it. Or see Aranea's gift. No one besides Cindy herself would.

She would forget all about it for the next few years, which she spent knowing more about Magitek, and about the former Niflheim soldier known as Aranea Highwind.

“You know what I love about you?” Aranea asked softly, one night among the many nights when Cindy did not go back to Hammerhead before the sun rose.

By that time, the sun was rising less and less often.

“What?” Cindy asked, genuinely curious, even if Aranea had already told her the many, many things that she loved.

With Aranea, it seemed there was always room for one more surprise.

Aranea smiled and touched her lips to the back of Cindy’s bare right shoulder. It was way past the point when Cindy could remember not having her warmth so near and within reach.

“You’re such a happy girl,” she murmured.

***

When the Long Night fell, Paw-paw was moved to Lestallum. He was looked after there. A boy named Talcott made sure of it.

And in the meantime, Cindy stayed in Hammerhead, helping as many people as she could, however she could.

At a time of great need, the Hammerhead opened itself up, accepting barter in exchange for services rendered.

Above all other needs, it seemed nothing was more important than light. So she used her skills to help the survivors of all nations, from Lucis to Niflheim, secure as much light as they needed.

Her knowledge of Magitek helped greatly in this. The things Aranea had helped Cindy learn in secret, outside of Paw-paw’s watchful eye, ended up being indispensable in a world where both magic and technology were in chaos.

Aranea eventually moved into Hammerhead. And when she went out on missions, she came back with new weapons that Cindy could look at and enhance - knowing full well that they would not be used to kill the helpless, or cause more undue suffering.

In the end, Cindy couldn’t get rid of Cid’s teachings, after all:

She would never use her genius to serve anyone who desired conquest, or desired to do harm to innocents.

So she enhanced weapons, where she saw fit. Fixed up vehicles where she saw fit. Refused, where she felt it was necessary.

And she brought light. So much light.

All the while, she kept up a facade of the “happy girl,” who ran the best and most essential garage in Eos.

People knew Cindy Aurum as the perpetually upbeat, supportive, compassionate head mechanic of the esteemed Hammerhead - partner of the acerbic but kind-hearted warrior formerly known as Commodore Aranea Highwind of Niflheim.

She was “light,” in the figurative sense of the word: a spot of brightness in a shadowed world.

***

But Cindy Aurum was more than what everyone else knew.

She had a secret...

She had a small safe.

Inside that safe were a handful of memorabilia - as well as three unsent letters, each written at different times in her life.

She read through all of them again at the age of thirty-seven - noticing the tear stains from sadness, the hasty lettering brought about by anger, the error-filled handwriting brought about by fear.

Noticing the words documenting all the feelings no “happy girl” should feel.

And then she wrote a fourth letter. It was such a strange letter to write.

After ten years of darkness, the sun was a strange light to write by.

She wrote that letter after being caught up in the celebratory mood that spread throughout the planet - as people everywhere stepped out of their homes and stood blinking up in wonder at the long-forgotten sunlight.

As Aranea had kissed her full on the lips, under a clear blue sky.

This one was not a goodbye. And it was the only letter she was ever going to send to her grandfather.

It was going to be sent to Lestallum as soon as the roads were open again, as a way of announcing that she was coming for a visit.

She was thirty-seven.

And she had nothing left to hide away.

_Dear Paw-paw,_

_I’m happy._

_And I can’t wait to tell you all about it._

_Your loving granddaughter,_

_Cindy_


End file.
